Two great games will become available this Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday. Gyruss (400 points) is Konami's classic tube-shooter, while 3D Ultra MiniGolf Adventures (800 points) is an all new mini-golf experience with mind-bending courses and animated 3-D characters. Both titles will be available Wed., April 18 at 0900 GMT (2 a.m. PDT)

Microsoft and the New York Television Festival today announced the Xbox Live Originals contest, granting aspiring television producers the opportunity to create a pilot that could be chosen for the first original series developed specifically for Xbox Live.

Guitar Hero II arrives with a new track list, new venues and additional play modes – including the ability to transform the original Guitar Hero SG Controller into a rhythm, lead or bass guitar. Various gamers reported an issue with GH II's whammy bar on the guitar controller, which Red Octane recognized, and now the issue apparently has been resolved through an auto-update.

Experience frantic cooperative gameplay in SouthPeak Interactive and Artificial Studios' Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, an Unreal Engine3 powered top-down shooter. Four players can team up on one Xbox 360 to slash, shoot, and drive through a menagerie of monsters in the campaign mode, or take battle onto Xbox Live for networked cooperative play.

Certain Affinity is working with Microsoft on remaking two of the most popular Halo: Combat Evolved maps to work with Halo 2. The maps will be available as premium downloadable content for Xbox and Xbox 360 on April 17.

Boom Boom Rocket is a hypnotic rhythm music game conceived by EA’s casual games design team and Bizarre Creations, known for the Project Gotham Racing franchise. Boom Boom Rocket will be available for download on Xbox Live Arcade beginning Wed., Apr. 11, at 0900 GMT (2:00 a.m. PDT).

Shrek The Third will take players on an all-new adventure filled with fun and exciting new challenges, never-before-seen characters and environments, plus the same humor we've come to love from Shrek and the gang. After the PC edition earlier, Activision has now released a 760 mb demo on Xbox Live Marketplace, allowing you to play the Far Far Away levle as either Shrek or Puss.

The ESRB has been the revealing source of various titles coming to the Xbox Live Arcade, and today a listing was spotted for id Software's multiplayer sci-fi shooter Quake III: Team Arena. If the listing is true, the Xbox Live Arcade version is being ported to the Xbox 360 by Texas-based Pi Studios, known for various Activision titles (Call of Duty) and currently working on the Halo 2 Vista Editor as well as porting Pandemic's Mercenaries 2 to the PS2.

A recent 1UP podcast with editor Shawn Elliot included an interview with Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, revealing that Microsoft is not letting them release free Gears of War maps. "We already released two (maps) and we have four more maps that we've built. We've been wanting to give them but actually Microsoft has been pushing back on us. They're trying to build this business model around selling additional content for games and that's a valid idea, but we would definitely like to release more stuff for free, and we haven't been able to do so yet."

UPDATE: According to Epic's Mark Rein, both parties have made a compromise. The maps will be sold at first, then made free after a few months, much like the previous Halo 2 map pack.

Lost Planet is a sci-fi action shooter set within the merciless frozen tundra of a hostile planet. As promised, Capcom has release the 2nd multiplayer map pack (Hive Complex and Trial Point), coming in at 161mb, and setting you back 400 Microsoft points.

Microsoft recently announced that it had changed the Xbox 360 warranty in the United States and Canada from 90 days to one year from the date of purchase, and now it's adding additional service enhancements.

Armored Core 4 will allow you to create your own mech from a few hundred components, including color, to give it an exclusive looks. Successfully completing missions, and purchase even more powerful parts to make your mech stronger. SEGA has released a playable demo on Xbox Live Marketplace, featuring 3 full levels and a handful of mechs to customize and test drive.

Why just walk like an Egyptian when you have a mystical winged scarab at your disposal? The smash-hit action puzzler, Luxor 2 will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade for X360 beginning Wednesday, Apr. 4, at 9:00 a.m. GMT (2:00 a.m. PST).

Microsoft and Bungie confirmed the upcoming release of two new, downloadable maps for Halo 2. The maps will be available as premium downloadable content for Xbox and Xbox 360 on April 17.

Crackdown is an action-driving hybrid introducing a 3-dimensional persistent playground, highly innovative co-op gameplay and an extensive prop interaction system all while taking place in a massive and stylized urban center. Microsoft has released a new patch through Xbox Live improving the online gameplay experience, and increasing the number of ambient gang vehicles that populate Pacific City.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 will feature changing climate, improved AI, an advanced Cross-Com system, air strikes from jet fighters, new weapons and a new soldier class, the Medic.

Team17 is working on a patch for the Xbox Live Arcade edition of its turn-based strategy game Worms. Various issues / exploits are being addressed, faster AI, but mainly a problem with 4-player games crashing. Team17 is also working on downloadable content that did not make it in the original release due to the 50mb limit at the time, such as a new theme, a bunch of audio, a stack of additional voice-banks and the usual themes & gamer-pics.

Atari has released the first downloadable content for its action game Bullet Witch, including a free, brand-new White Witch costume for the game’s heroine Alicia, and a Bullet Witch Xbox 360 Theme pack. In addition, for 20 points each, players can download one brand new mission “Dynamite Beauty” and two enhanced versions of the "Clad in Streaming Black" mission featuring ‘Great Spells’ unlocked and a heightened level of difficulty, respectively.

Fuzion Frenzy 2 is a party game set in space that combines futuristic arcade action, superior mini-games, tournament modes, and custom tailored games with online features such as multiplayer and customizable tournaments.

Microsoft announced that TV series and movies from A&E Network, ADV Films, National Geographic and TotalVid.com will add to the more than 1,500 hours of downloadable entertainment content already available on Xbox LIVE in the U.S.

Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of Xbox 360 Elite, a new model of the video game and entertainment system that will include a 120GB hard drive, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port, a high-definition cable, and a premium black finish for the console, wireless controller and Xbox LIVE headset.

It's a whole new ballgame! Major League Baseball 2K7 redefines the pure baseball video game experience with true, next-gen details, all-new throwing mechanics and a revolutionary presentation system. Featuring stunning, lifelike player models, signature style animations, inside edge data and more...

Shivering Isles features more than 30 hours of new gameplay and allows you to explore an entirely new plane of Oblivion — the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. You can continue playing with your existing save game/character, or create an all-new character just to explore the new content. Earlier than expected, Shivering Isles is now on Xbox Live Marketplace for 2400 Points (990mb).

Def Jam: Icon infuses hip-hop music, culture and lifestyle into the gameplay, bringing unique and innovative content to the next generation of gaming. Music will effect how players fight in each venue and environmental interactions and hazards will become a key strategy to staying alive.